Jonas Holman worked as a portrait painter, writer, doctor, and preacher, supporting himself through these vocations as he traveled among Baptist congregations. By 1827 he had made his way to Philadelphia where he painted seven known portraits, among them Woman with a Book and Man with a Pen. In these works Holman substituted a brilliant, tasseled curtain for a plain background. He showed his sitters in painted "fancy" chairs, with broad, Greek Revival crest rails, similar to painted furniture made in Philadelphia or Baltimore. Like Ammi Phillips, Holman used props that pointed to the sitters' erudition; he also concentrated on the details of his sitters' costumes, showing women with rings and earrings and men with stickpins fastened to cravats.